The Red Queen
by Kay Willow
Summary: A slow sort of country! Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" //Lover's Song II is up. Onesided Neku/Joshua//
1. lover's song i

**.lover's song i.**

It doesn't occur to him until Neku's eyes go blank, until he is falling, that this is not what he wants.

It is a strange sensation -- he hasn't wanted anything for himself in so long -- but he indulges it immediately, banishing the gun and sending himself across the floor in a single instant to catch Neku in a blur of black and white and gray, inches from the ground. He banishes the Room, the people in it who cry out, and reforms his physical body carefully. Inch by careful inch, and then he sinks onto his knees and pulls Neku's unmoving body into his lap.

He spends a moment just caressing the other boy's bangs, ignoring the hot blood soaking into his jeans. "This is the second time I've killed you," Joshua says to no one. "If I bring you back again, you'll probably hate me more than ever. I think -- you probably expected that I wouldn't be able to pull the trigger."

The idea that Neku might make this assumption based on nothing, certainly not past evidence, is strange; he's startlingly intelligent, really, and not prone to irrational emotional judgments. But it's not nearly as strange as the idea that Neku might have knowingly chosen death rather than hurt him.

He and Megumi agreed on this; it is a quaint idiocy, some undesirable flaw in the genetic material that makes one willing to sacrifice one's life for others. The boy Beat exhibited admirable evolutionary incentive in attempting to save his sister (whose stronger Soul was as desirable as her higher intellect) but evolutionary incentive certainly didn't come into play on the conscious level; on the conscious level, it was simply random stupidity. And Rhyme's willingness to do the same for him was only some sort of twisted nobility or gratitude. And Neku... certainly had no reason to want to protect Joshua.

In all sincerity, he had expected that Neku would find his own "sacrifice" to save Neku extremely suspicious, had expected him to doubt the genuineness of his apparent demise, but Neku had somehow managed to convince himself that it was the truth.

He is still bleeding sluggishly, staining Joshua with color. Joshua strokes his hair lightly, watching his slack expression. He has such fine features -- such a bright Soul.

"When I first saw you, I knew instantly that you were the one I wanted to be my proxy," Joshua tells him, soft. "It was like finding a diamond in a sea of rocks. Did you know that Mr. H had you marked? He was watching you long before I found you."

Impossible to know why an Angel watches anyone; Hanekoma had earned the right to at least as many secrets as the Composer. Had he thought that Neku might do remarkable, divinely-inspired deeds in the future? Had he been watching to make sure his incredible potential didn't fall into the wrong hands? Perhaps he had thought that Neku's Soul might have the ability to change the shape of Shibuya.

He certainly has.

Joshua lifts his head, _listens_ to the city on every plane he knows it; it hums, a cacophonous harmony, and he senses in it a compassion, a longing to touch, a desire to become more whole. A siren call like a lonely lover, beautiful and hopeful, and wholly different from the dangerous destruction song it had crooned only a month ago.

Joshua supposes that he has changed Shibuya, because of how Neku has changed him.

"You have no idea what you've done to me," he says, looking down at Neku again. "Even the _town_ I'm supposed to be looking after is mooning over you."

_I don't want him to die._ He felt it in the moment that Neku fell, and still feels it now. Can't bear to think of Shibuya going on without the shine of this particular Soul. It feels like terrible weakness.

(When Joshua plays the Game, his independence is his entry fee.)

He watches Neku as if expecting his lifeless form to provide some sort of wisdom or inspiration. But even Neku can do nothing dead, and all Joshua can think is, _If I bring him back, he'll only hate me._

"And whose fault will that be, hm?" he asks himself quietly, and lifts a hand to rewrite the rules.

This Shibuya that Neku has created in him -- he will see how it plays out.

"You'd better not break this city's heart," he tells Neku with a smile as the wound closes over rapidly, as the blood shrinks away from his clothes. He ducks his head to gently brush lips over Neku's mouth, just this one taste, hardly a taste at all -- as he draws back, Neku begins to breathe again, and immediately the world is an almost tangibly brighter place.

He doesn't ask for the same thing for himself. He hasn't earned it the way Shibuya has.


	2. red queen's race

**.red queen's race.**

They met every week or so -- not as often as Neku saw the others, but often enough that he wondered if being the Composer was really as grand a job as he had been led to believe. When asked, Joshua only said dismissively that it wasn't a Game week, or else that the Players had already been 'put to bed' for the day, and that was the only times either of them mentioned the Reaper's Game. But it still seemed odd to Neku, who was quite sure that Joshua had never come down to the Realground to mingle with normal humans before.

_The bond I thought we had is real,_ part of him knew it meant. _We had the same opinions. Because of that, he can see where I'm coming from. And because of that, he has started to change..._

But there was still that unhappy tension whenever he thought of Joshua, the lingering feelings of hurt and betrayal and anger, every day until eventually, out of seemingly nowhere, he could think of Joshua and it didn't sting. He had completely stopped feeling like he had to maintain his distance -- be reserved -- didn't feel like such an idiot for thinking Joshua was a good person. He had been murdered, played for a fool, and never once offered an apology or even a hint that Joshua felt any remorse... but enough time had passed that those old wounds had healed over.

That day, he told Joshua, "I forgive you."

And Joshua twirled the spoon over his fingers and looked up from his espresso enough to say blithely, "If I'd been holding my breath, this is the part where I would be relieved."

_Prick._

"You should treat next time, Neku," Joshua said, casual, as if Neku hadn't said anything. "In honor of your induction into one of the most secretive brand-name phenomena in Shibuya."

"You already know about that?" Neku scowled. Mr. H was terrible at keeping secrets from Joshua -- _only_ Joshua, for some inexplicable reason. He'd been looking forward to telling him.

Joshua leaned forward on his elbows. "Is it everything you wanted it to be?" he asked, his eyes half-lidded, lazy. His predator's look. He was hunting for something. "You're CAT now. Without needing a Player Pin, you reached out and touched the heart of Shibuya, becoming the same thing you admired long before Mr. H made you that offer."

Neku stared down at his coffee, thoughtful and avoiding that penetrating half-stare. Three years since he'd won the Reaper's Game (over and over and over) and discovered that the idea that Joshua had touched on so briefly in their time as partners -- _you could be like CAT_ -- had become his dream. He _did_ want to be like CAT. He wanted to create. And so, little by little, he had started: sketches in notebooks, then sidewalk art with chalk, then graffiti murals. His parents had been in awe of the discovery of his talent, and even more in awe of the discovery that he had motivation, passion that burned deep in his heart and found outlet in art.

And last week, after three years, Mr. H had come to look up at the mural he was painting and he'd said, _So they're calling you the new CAT, kid. Should we make it official?_

"It's not what I expected at all," he said finally. "I thought CAT was all about spreading a message of individuality. But it's not really like that at all. What I do -- what we do, I guess -- is more about setting your beliefs down. Maybe those beliefs do say, _be who you are_, but that's not what it's really about. I'm not _telling_ people anything. I'm just... putting my heart out there. I give Shibuya--"

"A chance to view your world," Joshua offered. "To share your values."

Neku tapped his fingers against the table, blunt rhythm. He didn't wear his headphones in public anymore, but it still felt like he could hear the soundtrack of his life playing in his ears sometimes. Conversations with Joshua always felt like they needed a steady tempo and a twisted harmony. "Yes."

"Well." Joshua leaned back. He was considering the words, considering them very carefully, and then he smiled. "I'm a little jealous. Everyone in Shibuya gets to feel connected to you. I had to work hard for that connection."

Neku fixed him with a flat stare. His coffee was probably getting cold. "You worked hard to get me to strangle you and gave me absolutely no information about yourself."

"I gave you enough information to get by with."

"And half of _that_ was misleading."

"_Details_."

Neku shook his head and drank more of his coffee. _I don't know why I even bother arguing with him. He only relents any point, no matter how petty, when he damn well feels like it._

But Joshua sat across from him and finished his espresso and seemed comfortable, and Neku felt comfortable. Even after all this time, that was the giveaway, the real sign that they were friends; Neku rarely felt at ease around other people until he'd gotten to know them enough -- had an idea of what they might be like, how they might react to things. He didn't like surprises.

"Are you working on something now?" Joshua asked politely, and Neku nodded. "Can I see it?"

He frowned at the slight young man. It still wasn't finished, but he didn't mind showing off his works in progress; the big factor here was that as his first solo project as part of CAT -- his first mural officially done in CAT's style -- it was a secret. "I'm not really supposed to let anyone see it before the official unveiling. It'd spoil it."

Joshua rolled his eyes. "I'm not _anyone_."

_No, you're a jackass._ Neku took another long sip of his drink and then pointedly folded his arms over his chest to indicate his total refusal to indulge Joshua's whims.

"I'm clairvoyant, Neku," he said patiently. "You can't spoil it for me because I already know what it looks like. It's a skeletal girl in monotone colors sitting on a ledge, with--"

"Shut up!" Neku hissed, getting quickly to his feet. He'd ruin everything. "Fine! I'll take you to look at it."

A triumphant smile creased Joshua's lips, and he said, "There. Have you ever heard of the Red Queen's race, Neku?"

They got up, and Joshua took care of the bill. "Sure," Neku said, gathering his coat up on his shoulders. "It perfectly describes every conversation I have with you."

Joshua smirked at him. "You're so _clever_," he said, his voice not nearly as effusive as his words. "It's like you know what I'm thinking before I do. I may as well be bumping shoulders with a genius. ...and, according to the magazines, I am."

Neku rubbed the back of his neck, a little self-conscious, as they walked, and his gaze swept nervously back and forth along the crowded streets of Shibuya. If someone overheard... If some Reaper or Player were waltzing by and he couldn't see them... It would be just like Joshua to give away _his_ secrets.

But Joshua suddenly decided to talk about music, asking what he listened to while he worked -- the only time Neku really got lost in his music the way he used to -- and Neku told him about the trends in the musical business, and what fueled his imagination. Joshua smiled in that private way of his, but he shared his opinions cheerfully.

They made it to the West Exit Bus Terminal as the sun was setting; not the best time to view the mural, Neku thought. There was a tall barrier erected around the walls he had painted, old off-white curtains hiding their unfinishedness from the rest of the city. Neku nodded at the plainclothes guard loitering around nearby and lifted the edge of the curtain, ducking underneath and waiting for Joshua to follow suit.

Joshua straightened only slowly, seemingly savoring the experience of looking at it for the first time, although he claimed to already know what it looked like. He sought out the little details that Neku had painted with great care and skimmed right over the unfinished parts as if he couldn't see them.

"It's beautiful, Neku."

"Thanks." Privately, Neku doubted that he cared all that much, and busied himself turning on the spotlights he used to work in the dark. _He had no idea what the appeal of Mr. H's art was. My style is similar, so I don't see why this would be any different._

Perhaps Joshua could tell he doubted. He said, "This will be epic, you know. You'll make this little bus station a piece of art. Everyone who comes and goes from Shibuya will see your work." Then, almost to himself, "The great work."

"What great work?"

"Why, the work of the Angels," Joshua said mildly, and moved up to put his hand on the wall, which was -- painful, for a moment, as Neku realized where he had seen that look before, that open expression, guard down and receptive to wonder, realized that he had seen it in Joshua's memories on his own face. "I feel it move me. My _heart_."

Neku tucked a hand behind his neck and tried not to feel -- flustered, somehow. Joshua had a knack for making things sound questionable. "Well, good. It's supposed to."

"Oh, Neku." Joshua slanted him an amused look, seeming more like himself for a moment. "You have no idea, do you?"

He frowned, shoulders hunching slightly. _He doesn't have to make it sound like I'm an idiot for not being able to read his mind. Maybe he could try explaining something for a change?_

Joshua stepped back, surveying the whole piece again as best he could from within the curtained enclosure. "It's been decades, at least," he said softly, "since any human's imagination has been able to touch my heart. Or anyone's imagination, really. ...Anything."

_Decades?_ Neku thought, startled. _Just how long has he been the Composer?_ Much longer than he'd even been alive, from the sound of it.

"Mr. Hanekoma's art is beautiful, but he lacks the Imagination that you have," Joshua said, and kept talking even as Neku attempted to protest, "the Soul. Of course, that was the reason I chose you to be my proxy -- that tremendous Soul of yours. I never thought, though, that you would even be able to affect me."

It was rather like he was suddenly speaking in tongues. Neku tilted his head back and looked at the mural, the shapes and colors that made up his design. It was good, he knew that, and Mr. H had spoken very highly of the concept, the execution-- But he wondered, sometimes, what it was like to be an outsider, looking at his work. He couldn't see what Joshua saw.

"What does it make you feel?" he asked.

Joshua continued to look up at it for a long, silent moment, and then he turned to Neku and said mildly, "You never say my name."

_Obviously he doesn't intend to answer that question. I guess it was too personal._ Neku told him dryly, "Just because you say my name every twenty seconds doesn't mean I have to do the same."

"Call me Josh," Joshua demanded, lips curving up.

"It's just a _name_. Shut up about it already."

Joshua sighed. "It's good to know you have your priorities straight, Neku: don't call me by name, but do let me blackmail you into revealing your masterpiece before the street date."

Neku folded his arms and attempted to ignore that. _At least I have priorities._

The smaller man curled his fingers over the painted wall, casting it one last, lingering look before turning to Neku. "I have a question for you," he said leisurely.

"Ask it," Neku said, shrugging. He'd left his headphones here when he went to meet Joshua, and he ducked to pick them up. "I don't promise I'll answer, but you can ask."

"That won't do at all," Joshua argued. "Let's make it a _game_. We'll ask each other questions until one of us refuses to answer or runs out of questions. How does that sound?"

Neku scowled at him. _Games, it's always a game._ He said, "You're the only one who has questions here."

"Not true," said Joshua, smiling at him and running a hand through his hair confidently. "Surely you have questions for me. You're not curious about how I became the Composer -- the things I know and have seen? No questions at all?"

That gave him a few moments of pause. Well, he supposed there were questions he'd always wanted to ask and never gotten real answers to. Mr. Hanekoma's real identity, Joshua's origins, and...

"Fine," Neku said grudgingly. "One game. And it doesn't count as a question if you already know the answer. Do we have to--"

"I'll go first." Joshua curled a hand beneath his chin, a studious pose as if this question were worthy of deep investigation, and even though he must have already had a question ready, he paused a dramatic beat before asking, "Why did you forgive me?"

It was a startled moment before Neku could react to that, think, _So he does care! Hah!_ and _You'd think I'd expect him to say the least expected thing by now._ He shifted, scratching his head, and tried to compose an answer to that question -- it was one that he himself couldn't really explain.

Finally, he said, "I guess... I couldn't forgive you because I couldn't let go of what happened to me, but. It's a little pointless to hold onto that grudge when -- well, when I believe that you did it because it was in the name of what you thought was best. And I believe that the Joshua who killed me so I could be a pawn in his Game was a different person than the Joshua who saved Shibuya."

The young man in question only tilted his head. "Isn't that a naive reason?" he suggested. "Have I ever shown signs of being a different person? Certainly I don't think of _myself_ as--"

"Why are you _arguing_ with me?" Neku snapped irritably. "Just -- accept it. I'm over it! You'll have to _kill me again_ if you want me to be pissed off at you about it more."

Joshua fell silent for a moment, and then he spread his hands helplessly, assuming an exasperated expression. "Yes sir," he said with that patently insincere submission that he used whenever Neku refused to budge an inch for him. "That makes it your turn, then." Joshua's eyes lidded again, as if Neku's question would also be an answer to a question that he hadn't even had to ask.

_Damnit._ Neku turned around, trying to collect his thoughts again. What was he most curious about? The unfathomable mysteries that Mr. H and Joshua still posed? Or...

Slowly, he said, "Tell me. What does the mural make you feel?"

Joshua's eyes widened slightly, and Neku felt a brief surge of triumph. _You weren't expecting that, were you?_ But he wasn't like Mr. H -- he really wanted to know, deep down inside, what other people felt, looking at his work. Or -- well, most of the time it was good just to know that they felt _something_, but he genuinely wanted to know what Joshua thought, because Joshua made no sense to him. It seemed like everything he did was contrary to all reason, and that lack of understanding made him feel so much further away than he really was.

Neku waited patiently, hands tucked into his pockets, as Joshua considered -- hand over his mouth, eyes averted, and then lifting his gaze to look again at the sprawling mural, skeletal girl and her view over the rich city, absorbing its colors into her monochrome world.

Finally he shrugged again. "I forfeit."

"You-- What?" Neku demanded, indignant. "What about your -- entry fee?" This wasn't the first time Joshua had done this to him, but this time it had been a real game, and, damnit, that wasn't how the game was supposed to work! You couldn't just _withdraw_. He remembered that very clearly.

"I've already lost it," Joshua said, and brushed past the curtain. Neku's jaw clenched and he followed quickly, just in time to see Joshua look back over his shoulder and say neutrally, "It really is beautiful, Neku."

Then he was gone in a burst of static, vanished into the ether, tuned into some other plane where Neku couldn't find him, couldn't even see him. The anger drained away, as suddenly as it had come. He murmured to himself, "Damnit, Josh."

He had to turn off the lights and prepare for the trip back to his family's apartment before he could leave, but he chose to linger for just a minute in the cooling air.

_Does anybody really win, when you have to work this hard just to end up in the same place?_ he wondered, tilting his face up to the sunset-painted sky. _Surely even you must want to go somewhere... right?_


	3. lover's song ii

**.lover's song ii.**

Neku comes back the next morning to finish the mural, at just before dawn. Joshua is already there, leaning against a finished portion of the wall and toying with a cell phone game idly. The brunet sets down his knapsack and opens it to reveal a stack of spray cans and markers and nozzles instead of school books, and he gets on his headphones and a mask as if he doesn't see Joshua there. He doesn't, of course. Joshua is tuned to a frequency slightly above the Underground, specifically wary of the possibility that Neku might be able to see him on the Underground plane.

He's been thinking a lot of uncharacteristic things lately, but revealing the full extent of his stalking to Neku is not quite on his list of idiotic things to start doing.

Joshua tilts his head, looking at the mask, and doesn't bother to hide his smirk. It makes sense, of course; the fumes from thirty cans of spray paint would probably knock out a horse, and suffering irreparable brain damage is not part of Neku's mission in life. But Joshua still thinks it _looks_ cute, like one of the little misophobic schoolgirls with a paper mask stretched over her nose and mouth as she squeezes into the subways of Tokyo.

Neku's face turns inward as he begins to paint a bare spot, and he is humming under his breath. To Joshua's knowledgeable sight, the glow of his Soul brightens exponentially; it is like this time, this dawn, Neku is the sun, sending his light into the sky.

"All over some little tube of spray paint," Joshua says to himself thoughtfully, getting up and moving over to stand behind Neku.

He's so... intense. Focusing the density of his spirit on the artwork, imprinting it unconsciously with his struggle for identity, with his pride in who he has become and his desire to expand his world. _When you know who you are, there's nothing to fear from opening yourself to everything,_ the mural cries out. _Open to me._

He is singing to Shibuya, willing her to confide in him and to see him as he truly is, beneath the skin.

Joshua was joking yesterday, claiming to be jealous of the connection Neku offers the city with his artwork. But he really _is_ jealous.

"I don't know what Shibuya ever did for you," Joshua says, indulging in the whim to be ridiculous since Neku can't hear him, doesn't even know he's there to feel ridiculously about his artwork. "What would you even do if you knew that the Shibuya you love so much is a reflection of me?"

It's a truth he's never spoken out loud before, something he hadn't even realized until he won his game with Megumi; that the reason Shibuya had become so dispassionate and cruel that it threatened to corrupt other cities, other planes, was because it had changed to reflect the mentality of its Composer. He knows that Mr. Hanekoma knows it too, but they have never spoken of it, from mutual agreement.

Perhaps he is not the best Composer, but compassion is unfortunately not a requirement to murder one's predecessor.

Questions that maybe he'll never answer for Neku. He would rather not see the look on his face. He says, wry, "Probably you'd -- recoil in disgust. It's one thing to court a city, another to court _me_, isn't it?"

_If only,_ Joshua thought, and his lips curled up, amused by the thought more than anything else. If Neku attempted to court him -- with flowers, perhaps, and serenades at the Kiryu estate window to shock his great-nieces and nephews -- it would be nothing short of a riot. Joshua would have to take pictures, and never let him live it down.

(He's never done this romance thing before, and he's not very good at it.)

_'You want him,' said the Angel, and sounded amused, damn it. 'Why don't you tell him?'_

A flicker of irritation, quickly dismissed; who does He think He is, interfering with the Composer of Shibuya? But there was no one who knew him better than this Angel. Not even Megumi knew him as well as the one who had been by his side for all sixty years since he had jacked Shibuya.

'I'm playing a game,' he said instead, casually. 'With myself. I'd rather he come to me, you see.'

The Angel sighed. 'Not everything has to be a game, you know,' He said. 'You idiot.'

Joshua folds his arms, watching the muscles shift in Neku's back. He is so small and simple and human, and incongruously brilliant in Soul. Perhaps he'll never know, but the shine of his spirit rivals Mr. Hanekoma -- born a higher being, never knowing the petty molding hardships of being human the way that Joshua and Neku know.

But of course, Neku doesn't have to _stay_ small and simple and human. There is a way to change that -- and, perhaps more importantly, to bring him closer to Joshua in the same stroke.

_Has it been enough time?_ Joshua wonders, bringing a hand to his lips and frowning thoughtfully. _Will asking only open old wounds and ruin any chance of winning him over?_

_Better to wait, and be certain._

They have time, after all. Neku has his whole life ahead of him, and Joshua--

Well. Joshua has as much as eternity to wait for Neku to come around.


End file.
